Sunday, November 11, 2012

MY TAKE ON L’AFFAIRE PETRAEUS

In the history of the USA’s Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), there have been three instances of Directors coming to grief
because of their perceived wrong-doings.

2.Richard M.Helms (1966-73) was removed by
President Richard Nixon from office because of his alleged disloyalty to the
President during the Watergate enquiry.

3. James Woolsey (1993-95) had to resign following
Congressional unhappiness over his reluctance to act against officers who were
considered guilty of slack supervision in the case relating to Aldrich Ames, a
Soviet/Russian mole in the CIA.

4.John Deutch ( 1995-96) had to resign following
suspicions/allegations of breach of security against him. He was allegedly
casual in handling classified information.

5.The resignation of Gen. David Petraeus reported
on November 10,2012, following the alleged discovery of an improper personal
relationship between him and his biographer Paula Broadwell, who was also from
the Army like Petraeus, is the first instance of a Director quitting because of
suspected moral turpitude. Both of them were married with children.

6.American society tolerates personal relationships
between unmarried individuals, but looks askance at relationships between
married persons from whom high standards ofloyalty and faithfulness to the spouse are expected. Both Petraeus and
Paula deviated from these standards and he has had to pay a price for this.

7. When such relationships between married persons
come to light they go down in the esteem of their near and dear ones, friends
and colleagues. They can no longer exercise effective leadership of the
organisation headed by them. Bill Clinton’s was a remarkable instance of a
President continuing and flourishing in office after his relationship with a
young girl was discovered and he had to face the humiliation of impeachment
proceedings, which were not successful. His was an exception to the rule.

8.The media has projected Petraeus’ resignation as
voluntary. It is quite possible that the FBI brought his relationship with
Paula to the notice of President Barack
Obama who advised him to resign. The resignation was called for.

9. Gen.Petraeus was a highly distinguished officer
of the US Army who had done well in Iraq and Afghanistan before he was selected
by Mr.Obama to head the CIA in June 2011 when he decided to appointMr.Leon Panetta, the highly successful
Director of the CIA who co-ordinated the covert action for the elimination of
Osama bin Laden, as Defence Secretary in place of Mr.Robert Gates.

10. The Congressional Intelligence Oversight
Committees confirmed his posting after examining his credentials for the post
and he took over in September last year. He had such a brilliant record and
reputation as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan that his credentials
appeared to have been assumed by the Congressional committees and his case was
cleared.

11. Normally, the FBI does a detailed background
check before the Congressional confirmation hearings, but nothing negative
about him that could have made him unsuitable for the post of Director, CIA,
appeared to have been discovered by the FBI.

12. It is now reported that during his posting in
Kabul as an Army officer, Paula was also in Kabul to interview him for her
biography and the two used to spend a lot of time together, often jogging
together. It did not appear to have struck either the counter-intelligence
division of the CIA or the FBI to question him about his relationship with
Paula and bring it to the notice of the Congressional committees. They seemed
to have assumed that it was purely a relationship between a biographer and the
object of her study and that there was nothing personal about it.

13. It was only after he started functioning as the
Director that the FBI realised that there was more than met the eye in his
relationship with Paula and started checking his E-mails. The personal nature
of the relationship then came to notice.

14. The case brings out continuing deficiencies in
the functioning of the counter-intelligence divisions of the CIA and the FBI.
The Congressional Oversight Committees may now revisit the checks that were
made before he was confirmed in order to see how the personal nature of the
relationship was missed by both the CIA and the FBI.

15. The FBI will also go deeper into the background
of Paula to determine whether she has had any illegitimate contacts with
foreign intelligence agencies, how long she was having a personal relationship
with Petraeus and whether there could have been any breach of security.

16. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of his
resignation, Petraeus will go down in history as an outstanding Army officer
and counter-insurgency expert. However, he headed the CIA hardly for 13 months
and did not have the time to impart his stamp on the organisation.

17. Before him, another outstanding military
officer---Admiral Stansfield Turner of the Navy---had headed the CIA under
President Jimmy Carter. His tenure proved controversial because of his packing
senior staff positions in the CIA with his confidantes from the US Navy. This
caused demoralisation in the CIA and had a negative impact on the CIA.

18. It was reported that keeping this in view,
Mr.Obama’s aides advised Petraeus, at the time of his appointment, to resist
the temptation to pack the senior posts in the CIA with his Army buddies. He
had to rely on senior career professionals of the CIA and he took time to get
to know them.

19.Between 9/11 and September 2011, for nearly a
decade, the CIA’s focus was turned to improving its HUMINT and covert action
capabilities required for security and counter-terrorism related tasks. The
time, efforts and resources required for improving its area expertise were not
forthcoming.

20. Petraeus was required to re-focus the CIA’s
HUMINT and covert action attention on acquiring area expertise in respect of
countries such as North Korea, China, Iran and the Arab countries. A new
operational strategy for this purpose was required. Before he could formulate
and implement such a strategy, his personal affection for and relationship with
Paula brought him down. He failed to distinguish himself in Libya and Syria and
he was unable to impart his stamp to the operations of the CIA. He will not be
remembered as a great intelligence officer. ( 11-11-12)

Sir, You have done an excellent study of the career graphs of three officers of the CIA and how their careers nosedived. Could you please do one on the officers who headed the RAW since its inception.The good ones and the bad or rotten ones who got to the top.That would be interesting.